USC and Miami fans waited anxiously Wednesday to see if the linebacker from Fontana's Kaiser High would pick the Trojans or the Hurricanes as his next team.

Instead, Shirley delivered a curveball.

He picked UCLA.

While Shirley's selection came as a surprise to just about everyone who was watching him on TV, it didn't get much of a reaction from Bruins coach Rick Neuheisel.

"Josh and I spoke about it being a surprise," Neuheisel said after the Bruins signed 22 players to letters of intent on Wednesday. "It was his goal to make it a surprise and I thought it was creative way to do it."

If only the rest of the day had gone as smoothly.

Of the Bruins' 22 signings, 13 are of defensive players. The Bruins lost several defensive players at the end of last season and have holes to fill in that area.

Neuheisel admitted he is usually nervous on national signing day, despite the commitments he receives ahead of time. Most of those players followed through on their commitments. Others didn't decide until Wednesday.

By the time the fax machines around the country stopped humming and spitting out the signed paperwork, the Bruins found themselves in a good position.

"You get a nice flurry of documents that you're expecting, and then you sit on the ropes and hope," Neuheisel said, describing his Wednesday's routine. "With all of the conversations, you get a sense of how people are going to decide, but until they actually do it, there's always that lingering doubt."

Some of that doubt existed in the case of defensive end Owamagbe Odighizuwa (Portland, Ore.) and Edison linebacker Jordan Zumwalt. Video of Zumwalt picking UCLA.

Odighizuwa had not yet made a decision, though his choices were narrowed to UCLA, Nebraska and Oregon State. Zumwalt originally committed to Stanford but changed his mind.

Another player on the Bruins' radar, safety Dietrich Riley (La Canada's St. Francis High), gave a commitment to former USC coach Pete Carroll more than a month ago.

All three signed with UCLA.

"UCLA was the right fit for me because I felt real comfortable with the coaching staff there," Odighizuwa said, donning a UCLA cap in front of a TV audience. "I believe in my heart that their football (program) is on the rise and at the end of the day I just felt the most comfortable at that school."

Riley told Neuheisel of his intent to play for USC. That prompted Neuheisel to push a little harder. When Carroll resigned as USC's coach, Riley began to rethink his decision.

"Once I committed to USC, I told Coach Neuheisel that I'm done with the whole recruiting process and I wanted to thank him for what he had done," Riley recalled. "He said, 'I'm glad that you called me and told me, 'This is great because I'm going to recruit you even harder.'

"He's been with me since Day One."

"As we started working toward this class, we knew the defensive front was going to be a priority," Neuheisel said. "We knew three of our top four defensive tackles would be moving on because of graduation. We lost our fourth (Brian Price) because it was time for him to move on to the next level.

"We've also done a nice job in replacing linebacking depth. We had to come in with some quality guys that maybe have the possibility of playing this fall. I think we hit that mark."

The Bruins held their own offensively, with touted running backs Jordon James and Malcolm Jones. Chris Ward (Mater Dei), Wade Yandall and Kody Innes will add depth to the offensive line.

Anthony Barr and Riley can provide the Bruins with help on offense and defense. Riley was approached by UCLA offensive coordinator Norm Chow about the possibility of playing on offense and Riley liked the idea.

"I'm expecting to go in there with a chip on my shoulder, ready to compete and earn a starting role," Riley said. "I'm going in with high expectations. I have a lot of goals I want to reach.

"I want to be a freshman All-American, I want to win a national championship, Pac-10 conference. I want to do all of that. I want to win games. That's it. I want to have fun and just win."

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